Local health body to pay for unlicensed cancer 'wonder drug'

Women in the West Country are to be given a potentially life-saving drug for breast cancer after a health authority made an unprecedented decision to fund the unlicensed treatment.

Trial results on the drug, Herceptin, are so good that when they were revealed at an American conference the researchers received a standing ovation, and in a leading medical journal today the treatment has been described as "revolutionary".

Yesterday the South West Peninsula Strategic Health Authority, which covers Devon, Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, announced that Herceptin would be available to suitable women before it is given a licence to treat early-stage breast cancer.

The health authority decision was hailed as a breakthrough by cancer charities. They urged other health authorities to follow suit.

The 11 primary care trusts in the South West agreed jointly that the drug should be made equally available to women in the region.

Related Articles

Dr Jim O'Brien, director of public health at the strategic health authority, said it estimated that 150 to 200 women a year would be eligible. It would cost £4 million annually shared between the health authorities.

"At a recent meeting of chief executives from across the peninsula, it was agreed that Herceptin will be made available immediately to women with early-stage breast cancer, on condition that this type of treatment is wholly supported by the patient's clinician, and that the patient herself is willing to receive a drug not currently licensed for this stage of cancer treatment," he said.

But the decision re-invents the post-code lottery in the NHS. Linda Vijeh, from the neighbouring county, a Conservative member of South Somerset district council, decided to spend more than £25,000 to travel to India for surgery and Herceptin.

Mrs Vijeh, 50, is selling her £125,000 house to pay for the treatment at a private clinic. She decided not to wait for the drug to be licensed and is staying at a clinic in Pune for a course of treatment expected to last a month.

"It takes some leap of faith to fly to a third world country to be operated on by a doctor you've never met in a hospital you've never heard of. But that is how desperate I was," said Mrs Vijeh.

Herceptin treats an aggressive form of breast cancer in women whose tumours have too much HER2 protein on the surface of cancer cells. It already has a licence for cancers that have spread.

The drug costs about £21,800 for the year of treatment in early breast cancer recommended by the manufacturer, Roche.

The full results of Herceptin trials are published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. They show a 46 per cent lower recurrence rate in treated women.

"This is probably the biggest evidence of a treatment effect I've ever seen in oncology. It is quite remarkable," said Dr Richard Gelber of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard University.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said it was unable to sanction widespread use of an unlicensed drug. "At the moment it's up to local primary care trusts to make their own decision," she said.